Hungry for More: Romantic Fantasies for Women - just published! With stories by Tiffany Reisz, Greta Christina, D.L. King and more. 21 fantasies, from "Kitchen Slut" to a cougar to Craigslist sex to BDSM to bukkake to watching two men get it on, and more!

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Read this. Just trust me. Also, it's for sale for $3.64 on Amazon. I met Adrian at the West Hollywood Book Fair, where he was very classy and gave all his fellow panelists a copy of his book (even the choice of hardcover or paperback!). It was brilliant, truly. Yes, funny, satire, etc., but also so much more. Worth many times that! Find out more at adriancolesberry.com. My review below.

This sex memoir is not only one of the best books about sex I've ever read, but one of the best books. Yes, the premise and opening are hilarious; ostensibly it's meant as a guide for anyone who wants to or might want to sleep with its author, Adrian Colesberry, who refers to himself in the third person umpteen times in the book. There's even a section to fill in why you want to sleep with him.

Upon cracking this open, you might think only a man with a huge list of lovers would dare to write such a book. Colesberry, by his count, has had 11 (I would adjust that number, given some information at the end of the book, but I don't want to create a spoiler). So, 11 women, who he breaks down by age, bra size, how he met them and pretty much any other standard you can think of. For, though this is indeed about Colesberry's body, preferences, childhood, emotions, etc., it's just as much about these women's, especially his ex-wife's. He manages to tell the story of his divorce in ways that are humorous, with venom lurking just underneath, and many of the cautionary tales involve her, though others, such as a failed threesome, involve other women. They have names like "The Great One," "The Innocent One," "The Expert" and "The Last One." None of them have invectives or mean names as, well, I'd be wont to do.

Colesberry guides you through pretty much every possible sexual permutation and though this could be clinical, especially in the footnotes we learn about his human foibles, his insecurities that are related to, but not completely about, his penis. That to me is the true genius of this book. We are taught that straight men, overall, have some major likes and dislikes and that for a woman who wants to bed such a man, she should adhere to them. Colesberry throws so much of that out the window; he does indeed have preferences and a certain sexual style, but he proves himself very open-minded. He is both showy and humble; of course there's an audaciousness to a project such as this, to talk about oneself in the third person and pretty much float the idea that you'll sleep with any woman who abides by the rules you've set out. But what emerges is something much more complex and human. If everyone had a book like this about them, I think there would be a lot less sexual confusion, but I doubt most people are up to the task of the minute self-examination Colesberry submits himself to or the cleverness with which he tells his tale. That anecdote at the end, the one I don't want to spoilt for you? Well, it is perhaps one of the bravest of all, and though its placement is strange, Colesberry offers up some context for it, while raising a million questions. Upon finishing, I didn't (sorry) want to have sex with Adrian Colesberry, but I did want to buy him a drink to praise his bravery, especially in a society where most people only go for the easy laughs about sex and rarely, even in their minds, allow for this level of scrutiny and thought about what truly turns them on.